Theorizing Food Sovereignty from a Class

Where do the conceptual ambiguities of food sovereignty lie and how can they be overcome? This article identifies a total of five challenges that underlie these ambiguities, namely the challenge of determining how food sovereignty as a research framework can address the tensions between: (a) state–movement relationships, (b) local–national interests, (c) rural–urban conflicts, (d) individual–collective choices and (e) political intermittence–organizational continuity. Using the method of integrative review, I argue that these challenges could be overcome if the criteria for addressing these tensions were based on the interests of the classes of labour by re-envisioning food sovereignty as a social mobilization outcome that potentially leads to agrarian class formation. A class-analytical approach to food sovereignty is thus deployed to study the case of Argentina in order to contribute to a more in-depth theoretical refinement and resolution of the conceptual ambiguities of food sovereignty